Can discomfort and detachment—detachment not as a practised intentional stance but as simply the inability to form an attachment to or not-quite belong in a place—also be a way of seeing? A way of seeing that does not necessarily have to be made of disdain and indifference for the unfamiliar but one that is calibrated by curiosity, uncertainty, and the lightness of not-quite-knowing. An essay on what not-loving a city opens up—as a mode of being, thinking, feeling, and, even engaging.
Chiragh Dilli 